Trewan Hall - Camping and Caravanning in the Heart of Cornwall, England

The History of Trewan Hall

TREWAN AND THE VIVIAN FAMILY

The Vivian family starts with a legend, the legend of the lost land of Lyonesse. Long ago Lyonesse was the land between Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. Disaster struck when the sea engulfed it and as the land disappeared beneath the waves, the Governor of Lyonesse, a Vivian, leapt onto his white horse which sprang with a mighty leap over the chasm onto the Cornish coast at West Penwith. There are still traces of the submerged forest at low tide round the Isles of Scilly and if you listen very carefully in the quiet of the night you can sometimes hear the submerged church bells from the drowned villages. Since then, the Vivians have had a white horse, saddled and bridled, over the family crest and until this century, used to keep a white horse ready in the stables for a hurried escape.

The Vivians of Trewan were a junior branch of the Vyvyan family of Trelowarren. The earliest record we have is of one Adam Vivian who, in the 15th century married Johanna Trenowth, the heiress of the property now Higher and Lower Trenowth about half a mile west of Trewan. Adam's son and heir was Odo Vivian, the same name as William the Conqueror's half-brother, the Bishop of Bayeaux. The family prospered, described as "the gentle family of the Vivians who have flourished here in worshipful degree". In 1633 John Vivian "moved half a mile up the hill and built the big house", the new manor house of Trewan. There is a stone fireplace with the date 1635 over it. The eastern part must have been much as it is now, but the western part was considerably restored about 1860. There is now no trace of the original hall on the western side, as seen in old pictures. A book of 1817 records "the grand hall is lofty and curiously finished. A handsome arched ceiling, the basement of which rests on a cornice whereon are exhibited in figures of plaster of Paris the principal events in Genesis". It must have been like the present hall at Lanhydrock.

John Vivian was 51 when he built Trewan and he lived to 65. But in those days for many, life was short and uncertain. John's first wife Frances died after two years of marriage. His second wife Mary had eleven sons and three daughters, but many of them died young. There is a monument in St. Columb church to four of them. Two of them, Charles, aged 5, and Elizabeth, 1½, died on the same day in 1636.

The Civil War started in 1642. Unlike Sir Richard Vyvyan of Trelowarren, who came out for King Charles 1 and was governor of his mint at Exeter, John Vivian does not seem to have taken any active part. In 1644 when the rector of St. Columb died, John Vivian, being patron for that turn, presented John Beaufort, a royalist, as his successor. With the triumph of Parliament in 1648 Parson Beaufort was ejected and suffered much hardship until he was restored in 1660 on the return of Charles II.

John died in 1647 and his eldest son, also John, inherited Trewan. John II is described by William Hals in his "Parochial History" (1696) as "my kind friend, a gentleman famous for his hospitality and charity". He played an active part in local affairs. In 1659, the year before the Restoration of Charles II, a list of 37 "Cornish gentry of the leading Parliamentary families" who met at Truro to consider the state of the country, includes the name of John Vivian. He was also a member of the Militia Committee for Cornwall, appointed by Parliament, "mainly men of the county gentry of Presbyterian opinion", who met on 12 March 1660. Charles II returned on 25th May.

John II's first wife was Anne, daughter of Sir John Trelawney of the famous family from which came the Bishop of "shall Trelawney die" fame. A tablet in St. Columb Church describes her as "a woman no less distinguished for her virtue than illustrious for the nobility of her family, an outstanding example of wifely love, who, after a long struggle with a wasting disease, finally expired most piously, leaving a great sense of loss". This marriage was a short one, and Anne's two children died soon after her. To one of them, Elizabeth, there is a tablet in Pelynt Church, near Looe, the Trelawneys' parish.

John II was Sheriff of Cornwall in 1680, and a J.P. The North Transept of St. Columb Church was allotted to the Vivians of Trewan as a family seat, and became known as the Trewan aisle.

In 1676 three schoolboys accidentally set fire to a barrel of gunpowder, stored in St. Columb Church for the local militia. They were killed and caused extensive damage to the church to the value of £350. Among the chief subscribers to the fund for restoration were "John Vivian Esq. of Truan (sic) £20 and his three sons Thomas,, John and Francis, £15". These three sons were by John ll's second wife Mary. Of them John Ill became a barrister, and Francis an army captain. He married the heiress of Coswarth in the parish of Colon, who was also heiress of the manor of Withiel-Gore. They died before their father, John 11, who died in 1691 aged 80. Trewan, Coswarth and Withiel were inherited by Francis' only child, Mary. In 1697 Mary married Sir Richard Vyvyan of Trelowarren, 3rd baronet, thus uniting two branches of the family which had been separated for at least three centuries.

Sir Richard Vyvyan became involved in the Jacobite rising of 1715 and was for a time imprisoned in the Tower of London. Mary joined him there and, while in the Tower, gave birth to a daughter. Mary survived her husband by 32 years, living until 1756 and playing an active part in managing the extensive Vyvyan estates during the lifetime of her son and grandson. Trewan passed to Mary's third son Thomas Vyvyan, who was Sheriff of Cornwall in 1779, and after him to his nephew (or great-nephew) Richard, who was also Sheriff in 1821 and a colonel of the North Cornwall Hussars, the new Yeomanry Regiment. On the occasion of King George IV's birthday in 1820 they paraded at Trewan where three "feu-de-joics" were fired, and Colonel Vyvyan provided a barrel of porter for the celebrations.

Trewan next passed to a cousin, Richard Henry Stockhouse Vyvyan, in 1832. In the 1850s the building got into a state of decay. Murray's Handbook for Devon and Cornwall of 1859 describes it as "now untenanted and fallen into ruins". But about that time R. H. S. Vyvyan undertook extensive repairs, the western wing being rebuilt in the original style. Mr. Arthur Tucker of St. Colurnb has an ivory two foot rule which was given to his great grandfather james Barry, a master builder and joiner, who supervised the work. It is inscribed "Mr. Thresher to James Barry, 1860". Mr. Thresher was probably the architect.

R. H. S. Vyvyan lived at Trewan until his death in 1881, when it was left to his cousin the Rev. Sir Vyell Donnithorne Vyvyan of Trelowarren, 9th baronet. He lived at Trewan and was also rector of Withiel, a parish long connected with the Vyvyan family. On his death in 1917 his second son Richard, who was a major in the army, inherited Trewan. His elder son Walter was killed in 1915 in the Great War at the age of 27. In 1920 Major Richard Vyvyan sold Trewan to Mr. Hawkey and this was the end of its connection with the Vyvyan family of nearly three hundred years.

Ernest S. Box

At the beginning of the Second World War the property was requisitioned by the Air Ministry and used for billeting airmen in connection with the air fields at St. Eval and other places, and a number of huts were erected in the grounds. After the war the property was in a very dilapidated condition. After changing hands once or twice it was acquired by the present owners in 1961. The company Trewan Hall Ltd. was floated in the same year with the restoration of the estate as its prime task.

TREWAN AND THE HILL FAMILY

The Hill family can only speak of a tenth of the Vivian years and has had a very different role to fulfil. Leaving London in the early 60s from a long established family building firm and bringing with them a baby and three small children the challenge of Trewan did not seem as daunting as it deserved.

The early years were spent in fighting advanced infestation of dry rot, the consequences of leaking roofs in elderly buildings and total neglect of the grounds over many years. The immediate objective was to secure a basic income by forming flats in the house and developing a farm and horticultural enterprise on the land. The former began to succeed, but too slowly; the latter was unsuccessful. Emergency plans to save the venture involved increasing the scope of the building activities to be able to contract for work in the neighbourhood and to change the direction of the use of the land towards leisure, a relatively new concept for those days.

Happily the fresh start began to succeed. The Camping Club (as it then was) was approached with a view to recognising a new Club site and in due course Barn Park opened in 1965. That first year should, however, not be remembered for success but for survival. Preparations were not sufficiently advanced to cater for the unexpected number of campers. The unfinished toilets were not adequately supplemented by the single chemical toilet in a tin shed and the steady rain throughout most of August was a severe test of both staff and campers.

1965 passed, and the encouragement hastened improvements leading to the opening of the pool in 1967 and Calves Close in 1969. By this time the building contracting was able gently to wind down, the work on the buildings at Trewan both recreational and domestic was well under way. The family (who had increased by one more), began to assume they were established in a permanent although precarious manner.This began to influence the development of the site. They, and the few others by now involved, began to create a place for other families to visit which had more to offer than a field on which to camp. For example, the novel use of old barns for evening entertainments arose out of the talents of one or two who were engaged in the project as a whole. By the end of the 1970s Trewan seemed to have acquired an original character which gave pleasure to many families, who liked what they found and continue to make regular visits to this day.

The task of maintaining the elderly buildings, the woodlands and the life of the estate, which includes a few small enterprises outside camping, has proved to be fairly demanding, and the opportunities for diversification have been resisted. Growth within the limitations of the estate has not been thought to be realistic if the character is to be retained, so it remains to be seen if eventual succession succeeds in achieving a second twenty five years with the Caravan and Camping Club.

Article written in 1990 on the occasion of the Silver Jubilee of the Trewan Hall Camping Site.